Simon Aynedjian
Aynedjian, who is the owner of Gibrahayer e-magazine, describes Harutuynyan's first days in the new environment outside
Aynedjian appeals to the readers to support this exceptional athlete. He underlines that “with her practice schedule and physical training which is already planned and taken care of by interested parties in
He is confident about the results: “With her kind of potential I am certain she will give back to her homeland what our homeland is unable to give to her right now”.
In May 2006 Harutyunyan won her first ITF (International Tennis Federation) by defeating
Zaruhi has been practicing in
Two days ago in a Category A tournament in
Zaruhi Harutyunyan will always have the support of Dickran Bedrossian (
Those who want to support funding her tours can make donations at the address given below.
Cypriot youth express support to Zaruhi:
Press release by Gibrahay Youth (www.gibrahayyouth.com)
On behalf of GibraHay Youth, we are happy to announce that, we have collected and donated a sum of 50.00 CYP towards Zaruhi's golden achievements, a sum collected from different local youth activities.
We wish her all the best and encourage her enthusiasm for excellence. We would like to take this opportunity to call upon the Armenian Cypriot community to tag along and follow our example in showing the support Zaruhi needs.
ITF (International Tennis Federation) ranking of Zaruhi Harutyunyan:
http://www.itftennis.com/juniors/players/player.asp?player=100087292
As seen in the above link, Zaruhi currently occupies 301 ranking (26 June 2006). This year she has won 15 games and lost only 6. She is born in 11th June 1990. Her objective is to be ranked in the top 100 before 17 years old.
You can make your donation at:
Laiki Bank Strovolos Industrial Area, Stavrou 96 I, 2034, Strovolos
Account Number 101 – 08 – 037631 for Zaruhi Harutyunyan under guardian
Please visit her webpage at: http://gibrahayer.cyprusnewsletter.com/index.htm?p=5
ADDITIONAL
An article by “Cyprus Mail” (21 May 2006)
by Leo Leonidou
A game of love
One young Armenian tennis player has moved to
A 15-year-old tennis player from Armenia, who came to Cyprus to compete in a local tournament two months ago, has decided to remain on the island, where she hopes to receive the training that will allow her to compete on the professional tour.
In Cyprus for the Aphrodite Cup, the ITF international junior championship held in Nicosia at the beginning of September, Zaruhi Harutynyan narrowly lost 6-4, 7-6 in the second round to Zuzanna Likhova of the Czech Republic, who three years her senior and is ranked well above her.
Harutyunyan was five-years-old when she first picked up a racket and instantly fell in love with the game. “I love tennis so much and want to become a great player,” she said. “I really believe in myself and my aim is to break into the world's top 100 and then work my way up from there. My dream is to win
“I need to play in some ITF under-18 tournaments in order to pick up enough ranking points which will enable me to qualify for the WTA (Women?s Tennis Association) Tour.”
As a nine-year-old, Harutyunyan won the Palm Springs under 12 tournament in California and has subsequently won tournaments in Bulgaria, Germany, Holland, France and England in the under 14 and 16 categories. The ITF (International Tennis Federation) paid for her traveling expenses as part of their youth development program.
While growing up in
But a move to a different country in the search of a career is a big move for a teenager and
Zaruhi Harutyunyan said she got in touch with the Cyprus Tennis Federation before leaving her homeland, her mother and her four-year-old sister to sound them out about the possibility of training here. “They agreed on the condition that I found somewhere to live, so I contacted
In
She has also made inroads into the island?s Armenian community, some of whom have been driving her to practice sessions and back, in addition to attending community functions and church. She has made new friends at her new home at the
It was at the Tennis Centre that I met up with her and being a keen tennis player myself, decided to challenge her to a game, fancying my chances against a 15-year-old girl.
We took to the clay court and started rallying together for a few minutes before Harutyunyan got bored with toying with me and started unleashing winners into every corner of the court.
I then asked to see her serve in action. She promptly proceeded to send down a serve that I barely managed to get my racket onto before acing me clean on the line. It left me wondering how somebody so young could generate so much power. In my 20 years of playing tennis, I have never faced such a formidable opponent.
“In
When asked what her impressions of
The coach's view
National Tennis Coach Yiannos Hadjigeorgiou gave his opinion on how good he thinks Harutyunyan is.
“She's improved a lot since the first time I saw her and is very willing to learn. She was out of practice when she first arrived and when I saw her in the Aphrodite Cup, she didn't play that well. But nobody can play well without practice. She is definitely getting better but I need to see her in an official tournament before I can gauge how good she really is and what her potential is. I would describe her as an aggressive baseliner.
“The Cyprus Tennis Federation allows her to use our facilities and to train with us at no cost. She is unofficially in our national program.” He added that there is a large Armenian community across the island “who wanted to help her from day one.”
Hadjigeorgiou worked with
The two were reunited during January's Australian Open in
Following in whose footsteps?
There have been quite a few players of Armenian descent who have made an impact on the professional game, most notablly Andre Agassi, whose father is of Armenian and Assyrian ethnicity from
On the women?s side, Manuela Maleeva is the most famous. Born in
In
END OF “
URL: http://www.cyprus-mail.com/news/main.php?id=23137&cat_id=5
